Monday, April 30, 2012

Responsibility, response ability. The ability to respond. That has always been the tenet of FGM and I believe it is also reflected in its blogging.

I remember a conversation with another PICA committee member. He chastised me for writing negative things about PICA. I told him this. I am not against anyone or any organisation. Do good things and I will write about it. Do funny things and I will write about that too. Without fear or favour.

I am always interested in the views of MCF officials, of our arbiters. I want to see if they are biased or if they are fair. And I merely act as a mirror to their actions by asking questions.

And so if they cannot see their own faults or weaknesses or see any weaknesses in the other officials then I think their judgement is suspect. And I would be cautious in accepting any of their findings.

You have seen the myriad of lies and slander spread on the blogs against FGM and me. I have furnished the evidence and yet there has been not a single apology or retraction.

In fact if you look closely I have merely defended ourselves from the lies and I have asked questions but I have not initiated an attack.

The fact is that these people have done the damage to Malaysian chess. They attacked the training to the juniors, they attacked the thematics and they attacked the juniors. And yet not one word has been written about those transgressions by "responsible" bloggers.

So they cannot respond.

The use of intimidation and lies to keep us from the truth. And now almost all the "players" have revealed their hands. Look back. Was there ever a retraction or admittance of mistakes?

So what is reponsibility? The responsibility to protect the organisation. Both Najib and Andrew have been paid by FGM in the past for services rendered. Do they have a responsibility to us?

FGM responded to the possibility of match fixing by informing the proper authorities for SEA games selection. FGM did what it could to protect their players by forming a team around the player that was unfairly kept out of the Malaysian team at Malaysian Open.

I did what I could. That was the extent of my ability to respond. And I blog. But what about their responsibility? To the national players, to tell the truth to all the stakeholders.

Andrew, I think you have lost the right to talk about responsibility. I think you are now just a pawn in their game. Or maybe you are even a "power player" now. You control the portal. Good luck.

As for Marcus, if you cannot see the harm done by Peter to both the chess community and to you, what can I say? If he was/is the great employer you say he is, I do not think you will be where you are now.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Every year there will be someone who attacks MSSM. So lets do some comparisons here so we know if whether the criticisms are valid.

MSSM is a separate entity with its own budget created by MOE to run a large number of sport events. So it is not a specialist organisation. Furthermore as part of the educational system they have to compete with the school calender for dates and use overworked teachers to run and organise events.

I have worked with the PT of Perak to find suitable dates as well as to organise the training for our MSSM players in the past. So I can understand why sometimes the selection process is faulty. It is hard to even get dates to play 20 min events. And MSSM is a 45 minutes a side game.

Furthermore MSSM is only an inter Sate event. So what the States are trying to achieve is to be the best State in the Country. So you see some PT's like Selangor and KL have very broad powers unlike other States. They have brought in players from outside selection in their attempts to compensate for the difficulties of working within a system as huge as MOE.

So sometimes I feel the criticisms made by people associated with MCF is totally unfair. MCF is a specialist body with none of those constraints. It's job is to prepare our players for International Tournaments. MSSM gives MCF a lot of value by working the base at the ground level, at the schools.

Ingratitude and an attempt to divert attention from their own inadequacies.

What MCF officials should be doing is ask why there is no training before going out for overseas tournaments? Continue to improve their own selection process. Stop attacking slightly older good players to divert attention back to the 12 and 13 year olds in order to hide their failures.

MCF runs chess all year round so they have specialist knowledge and experience. But their funds are leaking away into private hands. They do not train our players properly before they go overseas and they attack any attempt by others to do so.

Simply put. Look at the logs in your own eyes before you see the splinter in others.

MCF, fix your own house instead of back stabbing others. Stop trying to compare apples and oranges. The 2 organisations have different goals. So MCF stick to your own goal, if you have worked out what it is. Use the energy to improve instead.

Friday, April 27, 2012

So what happens to a system after it has not produced results for around 30 years. Remember I wrote that Dato Tan helped start chess in China after MCF.

Lets look at how a healthy system would respond to challenges. But first understand that progress can only happen within a tension. Yes, that means there must be at least 2 opposing forces/ideas. One to move forward and one that resists.

You will find this also in the game of chess. You must bring the fight to your higher level opponent. For without the tension, there will be no opportunity to win. If you play safe, you lose.

A healthy system is one that learns. It embraces new ideas. It experiments and allow others to experiment to improve. It acknowledges mistakes and shortcomings in the realisation that it is unavoidable in order to break new ground.

So how do we recognise a system that has lost it's confidence? There will be a lot of finger pointing, a lot of huddling by stakeholders who whisper in corners but feel totally ineffectual. In fact over time they will even reject any solution for they are now used to what I have called the emotional trap. Read this for a better understanding. Here.

But make no mistake, there is still the pressure to produce results and so you will find an elaborate way to deflect the real issues. They will create illusions to give the perception of movement when there is none. They will come up with ways to reject new ideas and people who question. The system does not want the truth to be out. They need to perpetuate the lies. But how do you lie to so many? Collusion. They do not want change, they want victims so they can remain as they are.

Change can be frightening if you are not used to it. It means you have to move out of your comfort zone. It means you can make mistakes. It means you need to develop your judgement. It means you must confront strong emotions to think.

That is what chess can teach you. But it has been hijacked. This is what you should be learning. Here.

So today you have a choice. Do you want to continue to huddle in corners and blame this person or that for another 30 years. Or do you want to take some action to get real results. I have offered you a way. A legal slush fund to defend the rights of all stakeholders in chess.

"As a leader of an organization, must have accountability & responsible towards the team. How can a leader promise certain things but at the end "S***" to jump queue? Then for what purpose taking the responsibilities? What differentiate btw u and our leaders? It's the same as you are birds of a feather flock together!! Even our NM Evan also taking part just to prove himself but not as NM! That I respect him. We will never ever progress far with monkeys around stealing our bananas!!"

This is the second part and I did misread the post.

I apologise unreservedly for the misunderstanding. On the whole I do agree with Marcus.

However I hope the general message of the article is not lost by this mistake on my part. I will be more careful in future posts.

"Chess can even have corruption.. What kind of rules & transparency stated in for the competition just for the sake of someone? Why does someone who got placing 6th needs to playoff with someone placing 13th with point difference of 1 point and what about 7th-12th placing winners with 5 points with difference of half point from the 6th? NOT EVEN QUALIFIED and standings shown clear cut winners! Anyway this looks like for pre-election for BN?"

Liked by Patrick lim and James loh.

The post was in 2 parts. The second part was directly about Evan Capel. Unfortunately I only copied the first part. When I returned to Marcus's post to retrive the second part it had already been deleted. So unless Marcus reprints it for us to see, it will be his word against mine. I do not think I misread.

MSS season is back and I see "arbiter" Marcus Yeoh publicly attacking player NM Evan Capel on facebook. Corruption he cries, just like BN election he says. Now how did he come to this conclusion? One is an individual and the other is a system.

Note: This is important to understand by virtue that an arbiter is supposed to dispense justice fairly to all.

I think we need to analyse this carefully. Question. When a player loses his confidence, is it the same as when a system loses it's confidence? Lets analyse more critically.

Chess is an extremely competitive sport played out in the full glare of public viewing. Your thinking is exposed on the board so it is hard to lie to those who know how to analyse.

Now lets understand this. There is nobody in this world that is born with an innate ability to take extremely high pressures. They do not pop into this world with the temperament, character and knowledge to beat Kasparov.

That ability has to be carefully nurtured. So you will expect slips and falls. You will expect to see failure in courage from time to time till they are seasoned enough, old enough.

So we can have 2 situations.

One is when courage fails without premediatation. This will occur in any and every player thoughout their entire career as they bridge new and higher levels. In that case we counsel and we guide because we know that is the nature of the beast.

And on the other hand we have arranged games. Players who find old games to win or draw, hoping to avoid detection....players who play tag team by losing to team members to push someone nominated ahead. That is premeditated. Now this is a more serious offence.

The job of the arbiters then is to detect and prevent this happening in tournaments and deal with the different situations with the correct weightage.

But this is now the second case of arbiters publicly attacking named players that I have seen recently. The other one was arbiter Najib who said he would have banned those he calls "cheaters" in the 2010 NJ.

Now it seems to me that these arbiters make no mention of the corruption in the system. The abuses of power by officials. They try to keep the focus on the players. Why? Is it to deflect from their own corruption?

For comparison lets look at what happens when the system loses it's confidence in my next post. And then we try to analyse which is the greater evil.

The correct orientation or perspective is always benchmarking against regional and international competitors in today's world. And only from that can we measure the gap and find the correct training to close that gap.

Otherwise it is all an exercise in futility and leads to the creation of self delusions or worse for we are merely trying to compare apples with oranges.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

According to Eddy, it costs around RM200k to develop a GM. I am not sure how he arrived at this computation and his working assumptions but I do know how much it cost to develop a national junior from my own pocket. And it is not a small amount.

And so I do not feel I need permission from the "Sentinels" of Malaysian chess. People like Jimmy, Peter Long, Najib etc. etc. how I spend my money, who I want to coach my son? Or feel I should need their blessing should my son or any one else want to do the GM run.

While acknowledging that the Selangor Open is a good tournament, I cannot help but wonder if these people are totally stuck in the past. Nobody is trying to take away the players past achievements but it is today and the role they play in it that is relevant. Have you noticed that they have not even addressed any issues raised on my blog?

They have not addressed the FGM training even after I published the letter from Air Asia and put up the accounts. I even brought a Jimmy cohort to meet one of the parents and they still deny the truth. The fact that the parents had to pay a lot for for Asean the next year without training and they don't even blink. They even attack the players and parents in broad daylight and not one of them have raised the issues. So many many trangressions and they close their eyes. Even Peter making national policies. And it is so easy to find out the truth.

So where is their integrity or credibility?

As they say they see the splinter in my eye but they cannot see the logs in theirs. And so these "Sentinels" will have a say on who your next President will be. They will tell you that your child can only play for the Country, at least at the senior level, if they pass their "test".

Now remember that these people do not recognise any damage done by them or their cohorts.

So I think it is safe to say that the progress of your child is dependent on how you kowtow to them. And there is no rhyme or reason to their demands. And according to Eddy the same song has been sung for 35 years and it has brought no real results.

The fact is that there are now in place a systematic policy of intimidation and sabotage. My point. If you kowtow to intimidation, the player will never make that GM run where it is all about the winning mindset and mental strength under adversity. In fact the damage to them will be lifelong and affect every other area of their life.

The juniors today are better than all those has beens. That is my conviction. But they are sytematically sabotaged. And I think they and you also know that. That is why they cannot allow FGM to continue. Notice they have not addressed any real issues. Can you see that?

I have challenged them to meet in clean tournaments. Simple isn't it? If your system is better, you will win. But they dare not take up the challenge. They ban or threaten to ban instead. They talk about past glories, they deflect and they lie.

So my pledge is that FGM will commit RM500 to a fund to bring a test case to the courts. For me it is a small amount compared to the investments I have already made and the ones I will make in the future. If you feel a test case is the way then I ask you to write to me and make that pledge too.

All I need is a pledge for now. We can discuss the details for disbursement later. Use the email on the side of this blog to keep your identity confidential.

The parents and the players require their dignity back if we are to succeed. We cannot be held hostage like this.

All we should need to do is to follow proper rules. And so we need to know where the boundaries are. And that cannot be done by appealing for justice from MCF. That has been tried for many many years. It does not work.

Monday, April 23, 2012

During Asian Youth 2011, I looked at the level of competition there and felt that there was the possibility that our National Juniors were not too far off the current levels of our IM's. I talked about it there and I spoke to the Juniors when I got back. Some agreed but many didn't. I felt the gap was around maybe 1 or 2 years of correct training. But there was a proviso.

The first was that they needed to believe that they can. Then we need to train to remove the inconsistencies and come up with the right strategy. And so that was what FGM's SEA games training was about. To test if my theory was right. And the results were even better than I expected.

And so Jimmy, Peter Long and friends needed to attack. The results showed very clearly that their time is almost up. No more free trips and no more illusions to hide their nakedness. Their small bag of tricks were vanishing. To my surprise I found that the rot went all the way to the top. Even MCF colluded to punish the only junior player to break the glass ceiling at the senior squad.

That is why they need the arbitrary powers to change the Malaysian squad. Mok was brought back in although he lost selection. He even elbowed Sumant out of the Malaysian SEA games team training at Malaysian open. So how did Jimmy and Mok get to decide the Malaysian Team constitution? Why didn't Greg stop this but instead allowed it and the rumour that Sumant was going to get kicked out of SEA games squad to fester?

Why did Najib write more and more strident posts about the right to ban arbitrarily and that I could not coach because I do not play chess? Afterall my results are much better than his. And the juniors chose me to train under and not him or Greg or anyone else.

The job of a Coach is very different from that of a trainer. There are tons and tons of evidence in sports here and all over the world. So it's a very pathetic attempt by people bankrupt of ideas.

So the juniors cannot be allowed to decide for themselves. Their parents cannot be allowed to decide for themselves. You must either go to those people who cannot produce results or we ban you. Isn't that the message?

If my methods are useless the juniors will know how to leave and not waste their time. And now you have seen played out in real life how the glass ceiling is set and who are the "players" involved.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Their case is that our juniors today is much weaker than the juniors during their time.

My case is that our juniors today are systematically sabotaged by a glass ceiling. The only way for the juniors to progress today is if they are broken, their parents are broken; when you are "one" of them.

My case is that when that happens they will have taken away the only thing that will help them succeed. Their self confidence and their dignity. Not only in chess but in life as well. And that is too heavy a price to pay.

Ego, you are not to obey the rules for there are none but forced to obey their rules which keep changing.

And I have shown you many examples that I have witnessed. Parents are used shamelessly as we are now seeing in the example of the new deputy President. Look here. Zuhri's name is not even on the MCF website yet. The money he raised and which he said would go towards sponsoring the current National Junior Champion has been "misappropriated". And so many other cases. Even one where a "trainer" makes national policies.

I have used the word God complex many times in my posts. There are some people who think they have the right to promote who they think is a "strong" player. They ask for a diversion of funds to sponsor these players on the grounds of ratings and some orchestrated showcasing. I will write more on that later. But in the meantime please consider the issues yourself.

There are private organisers who think they can "ban" any national player they don't like. We even have one that now openly talks about it on his blog. See here. This is the man we need to rely on to be fair to all. That's what an arbiter means. I will be answering his post later.

This is the arrogance of absolute power. Somehow over the years they have come to the conclusion that they can do whatever they want. Make and unmake any rule they like.

Players, parents and other trainers/coaches/organisers not in their "camp" are just pawns in their game to enrich themselves.

And they can do that because they know they can use the tool of intimidation on parents and players. Once broken or played out most do not want it publicised for fear of public embarrassment.

They rely on that one fact to keep their game going. Divide and rule.

And it has worked for many years. And we have let them. And so over time they feel they can do anything and we will always be compliant. I think it's time to tell them they are wrong. I think it's time for a test case in the courts of law. For without which we can never amass the needed evidence to prosecute. We need a court order to compel "sight" of the evidence.

And so we need a legal slush fund to bring an agreed test case to the courts. I will write more on this after the weekend. I hope you will consider this move at least. I strongly believe it the best way to stop the rampant and now even very open abuse of power. I will lay out the mechanics on how it will work and what you can do to help later.

We need to take back the controls as probably the biggest stakeholders in chess. The correct new President will help but I think we need to rely on ourselves more rather than hope that this will happen. Think about it.

We need a test case to see if they really have the powers they claim they have.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Is it? Have you ever wondered why even in Fide there is a contest for the top post and here we have horse trading? How is that different?

Have you ever wondered why ratings work in many Countries but here we sent 2 players who haven't played a Classical Fide Tournament in 10 years to the last Olympiad?

It's about competition. The courage to challenge with a better idea, a better program, a better game. It's about the culture of healthy competition. It's about raising standards.

A challenge for the top is a good step forward. But it is still not enough. Read what Tengku Razaleigh said again. Here.

He says our future is not in the hands of the VIP's. What could he mean? I understand it to mean that if we just rely on the top to fix things, we are still in the same trap. We sit and and hope the new President will fix things for us. The rest of us will not have learnt anything.

We are still helpless in the face of abuse of authority if the top doesn't want our rights protected because a "deal" was struck during the horse trading.

So a contest for the top is a powerful message that we are bringing competitive chess to Malaysia. We are a mind sport and so it needs to begin with the mind. We need to free our minds first then we can compete. We need a new culture for Malaysian chess if we are to have our own GM. And one that can stand tall among other GM's.

I will propose something the rest of us can do even as we hope there will be a healthy challenge for the top; one based on issues and good programs and not sabotage. My proposal to the rest of us in my next post.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The popular opinion is that we need a "sugar daddy" type President. One who gets us sponsors, pay the bills when we have project overruns etc. The best is also if he is divorced from chess or operations. In fact the less he knows or interferes in the smooth running of individual profits the better.

So I've been observing the effects of such a leader over many years. My conclusion is that this type of leader fosters weakness. I have heard many players complain that they would have been great if only they had the "right" support etc. etc.

I haven't actually heard anyone say I'll make it on my own steam. Jimmy describes it well here. I can only hope this means he has decided to stop being a chicken and this is not just another one of his Jedi mind tricks.

So what do we need in our President?

I think I have convincingly argued that there is enough money that MCF can generate to fund the many needed activities if we can stop the leakages. So we don't need a "sugar daddy". I think we need someone like the strict headmaster that I used to have when I was in school. Someone who takes no nonsense, makes decision without fear or favour. Someone who can crack the whip and has no other agenda except what is best for the entire chess community.

But as we have seen, the moment he tries to put in place proper guidelines and code of conduct he is going to face tremendous resistance. So there is an additional caveat. He needs to have his own team so that he can keep things running while he deals with this terrible culture that we have.

I think those are the minimum attributes. A lot of things have happened over the last few years and we have moved forward a little. To cement the small progress that we have achieved I think we need this change of leadership.

Note: I hope that if this change occurs, we can all bury the hatchett and move forward as a real chess community. But one with fair rules. Not the cowboy status that we now have.

I also hope no one challenges for the top post just so you can put in your own cronies and hidden agendas. If that happens then we will just go round and round and still be in the same spot 30 years from now.

Do read the post below again. Then it's up to the delegates to vote wisely.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Background: MCF's AGM is a top secret event. MCF's decision making process is also a top secret affair. Maybe that could be justified if MCF paid for everything. Free training and free tournaments for all. Then so long as we use their free facilities we don't have a say. That sort of works.

But what is the reality? We pay for the vast bulk of activities. Parents and players. We bring in sponsors, we pay for the training of national players, we pay for the tournaments and we even organize private events etc. etc. But we have no say. We are not even given basic information. And that is not right.

So there may be a fight for the top post. This is what I suggest.

1. That the date of the AGM be announced early on the MCF blog and the list of contenders published together with the Agenda.

2. That the MCF AGM be open to all stakeholders (ie players, private organisers/trainers/coaches and parents) to be present as observers.

3. That the contesting Presidents announce what is their stand relating to the issues now facing the Malaysian chess community so that we know what our representatives in the State affiliates are voting for.

4. That the voting is not by secret ballot so we know who voted for whom.

There is a precedence for this. In the PICA election 2009, both the candidates went on the podium to present their arguments in front of the membership.

This way is much healthier. If there is nothing to hide and no personal agendas then that should be the way. Then we can hold them to their promises for we will have witnessed and studied their plans for our future.

And so we have seen what any new President will have to face. He will need to rely on "technicalists" to advice and you have seen the examples of the arguments they will use. They will bring in parents with vested interest and they will twist and lie and they are unable to accept any reasoning.

They will use the same arguments that ended with Malaysia sending 2 players to the last Olympiad who had not even played a classical Fide tournament in around 10 years but have fat cow ratings.

Next time you go to an age group tournament look at the kids. Look at their fire and their passion. That is our raw material. And then see what happens to them over the years. See what happens after years and years of sabotage and undermining; of match fixing and back doors.

See what happens after sending them out to fight year after year unprepared and untrained. Is it possible that they will eventually get as punch drunk and as twisted as Jimmy?

So the new President need to also address the other big issue of the draining of our Association funds. Melaka needs to be investigated. New guidelines to curb the power of the Secretary need to be put in place. And we need clear parameters for the people empowered to negotiate on behalf of MCF.

For without the funds we will not have any training for our national players. And there will be no change.

And without the training and the chance to win in a clean fight, we will keep seeing end products such as Jimmy and his likes. They cannot face reality anymore. They must huddle together with their likes for numbers. For they have lost their confidence.

And then some like Jimmy and his cronies will try to infect the new generation with their failure. They will sabotage, try to ban our strong players and try to create their glass ceiling again.

So we need the new leadership to acknowledge the issues and tell us how they are going to change things. Or we will keep going round and round replacing one dud with another for another 30 years. My proposal in tomorrow's post.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

You have a right to your own opinion having brought up a strong chess player in Li Tian. I do not think any player disputes his strength.

But I wonder who you mean by the chess community. Jimmy, Peter, Najib or that person who hides his identity behind the pseudonym Chess Ninja?

Lets not talk about Jimmy, he has raised no one and is about to be retired. Peter now has his best student in Roshan so he has some credibility for that accomplishment. Maybe he can speak with more authority if he raises Roshan to greater heights. But I have my doubts he can do that.

As for Najib, he calls himself a trainer but has yet to even bring up anyone we have heard of. So all he can justifiably claim is that he plays some kind of chess. He can also claim to be an arbiter but also not a very professional one as we saw in NJ 2010 where he left the selection in disarray by not showing up during the play off and leaving unclear criteria.

Is that the sum total of your community? The ones that is being destroyed? I hope you won't mention the anonymous comments. Agree?

So let me tell you about the rest of us. Let me tell you about the ones who don't agree with your selfish attempts to bring in Li Tian via the backdoor.

Lets start with the sponsorship given by Dato Tan. There were many angry words spoken about that by others in the community. They see Dato Tan as the Honorary President of MCF and not as a private individual. At that time I defended the sponsorship by viewing it as a private event. But others did not think so and still do not.

The first time you turned your back on me was in NJ 2010 after Li Tian's disappointing performance. But that is just chess. The kids perform in spurts. This year Li Tian is doing well and Mark has his STPM. So what's the rush? Sponsorship?

Then why didn't you let him play SEA games selection or National Junior last year? Isn't that the proper way?

I know there were attempts to bring Li Tian in for SEA games via the backdoor and you were upset when we brought in selection.

You may not realise this since your chess community consist of those few people. But this is one of the reasons why there is serious talk about challenging for the top post.

And some of the things said are not very rational either. Anger begets anger and injustice begets injustice.

So what happens to the rest of us who wants to play clean chess in this drama of action and reaction? Would we become collateral damage as a result of your selfish action?

Chin Seng, you are inside a very small minority of cronies. Don't talk about the community. You have no clue what is going on and the people you have pissed off.

And don't for a second think that Jimmy and his cronies belligerence is going to intimidate anyone. It may have worked before but not in today's world.

I have been told time and time again the same thing chess ninja posted on the link above. Do you guys really think we are stupid just because you have learnt how to cut and paste?

That is why I suggest we use clear selection criteria in a proper tournament. That will be better for all. You can see this too if you can get rid of your God complex.

Neither you nor Jimmy and his cronies can tell the rest of the chess community who should represent Malaysia. That is not your right. The only right you have is to your own opinion of your son.

When we were new in chess the flavour of the month was Eng Chiam. "The next GM". Before that we heard it was Izz. And now it's Li Tian. Have you ever wondered if there is something strange about this?

Lets try to reason this out. Well we know this. After a while the PR machinery stops and the player is dumped and never promoted again. Agree? Actually there is no record of success at all.

We also know that until I started to question the logic with evidence, certain people kept saying that our kids are weak and that unless you are a GM by a certain age, you are all washed out.

Note: Jimmy tried to reverse that sometime in the last few weeks but I think it's a little late for that denial. Especially not after arguing in concert with his cronies for the last 2 years.

I think it is also very safe to assume that these people don't give a toss about our players at all. I offer in evidence the behavior of Jimmy when he put up that post by Zhuo Ren. I believe any responsible adult would have cautioned Zhuo Ren to try and resolve the issue privately without going public with his "concerns".

I also give in evidence the fact that Sumant was dumped by the Malaysian Team at Malaysia Open and his place taken by Mok who had lost in selection. I believe there was a message there. You may win at selection but we will give you a hard time. You are rejected for your audacity of winning your place before we retire from old age.

I do not think it is a stretch to say we are dealing with very mean spirited people. And there are still so many other examples if that is not enough.

I scratched my head to wonder what could be his objective? This is the guy who tries to ban other strong players. The same guy who actually had the chance to train many of our top juniors but they ran away from him after a short spell. I was witness to his methods when Mark shared a room with Roshan at Asian Youth.

So this is what I think. It is an established fact that nobody in Malaysia currently, has the knowledge to bring up a GM. Any real attempt is sabotaged.

Consider this. If Zhuo Ren, Sumant and Mark had been allowed to continue working together with my methods what could have been the final result?

So this must be attacked and then the attention switched to a new young junior. But consider this also. What happens now? Doesn't this give them a few more years of extra life before they try to "promote" another potential "GM"?

There have been 2 lost generations. Maybe more. Think on this. It has taken years for Edward Lee, Kaushal, Zhuo Ren, Sumant, Izz, Mark, Nabil etc etc to reach their level of proficiency. And a lot of time and money have been invested in them.

It had taken years for Nicholas Chan, Marcus Chan, Ronnie Lim, Loo Swee Leong, Fadzil Nayan, Nik Farouki etc etc to reach their current level of proficiency.

And until we got the hard fought written selection, none of them had the chance to represent the Country in a good clean fight (except for Nicholas Chan and Ronnie Lim who did represent Malaysia at one point). Maybe another story.

We still have the duds at the last Olympiad. With maybe only Yee Weng in the senior squad still showing sparks of fighting chess in the last SEA games.

Consider this. If we had written selection criteria earlier, do you think Jimmy, Peter and Mok will still be playing for Malaysia? Would Greg have played in the last Olympiad?

My believe is that with a little more tweaking almost all of the above "lost generation players" have a good chance of knocking out the current senior squad. They may not have the big numbers because of a lack in opportunity to buffer their rating but they can play chess.

The fact is Jimmy and his cronies cannot bring up any one strong. They only know how to beat you down psychologically. Then they try to divert the resources of the entire Country to a new protege so you do not realise that that is really the limit of their knowledge. Around 13/14 yo.

And they continue having their free trips to sell books and make business deals because of their "ratings", while our attention is diverted.

Btw, this information was shared by Greg directly after the Olympiad. It seems there is no honour among these people.

We do not have the knowledge or the resources to bring up a protege.

Our best bet for a GM in actuality, are those in their late teens and early to mid twenties. That is the current Malaysian reality.

Don't you think that is the biggest con ever perpetuated on the Malaysian chess community?

So isn't the best way to prove who is right is by selection and clean competition? And don't we need an end to banning of strong players without justifiable grounds and based on the rules of chess?

So let Li Tian win the National Junior and then claim to be the strongest junior. There will be no dispute. But he was a no show last NJ. And then let him win his place in the senior squad in a proper selection. There will also not be any dispute. Again a no show for SEA games selection.

If he is as strong as they claim then there should be no problem for him to win convincingly.

Consider this yourself. Does my reasoning carry water? Who has the twisted logic?Ref: Here.

I have written extensively on how one can fatten ratings just for show. We are not interested in that. FGM is only interested in meeting fat cows in tournament in a clean fight.

We have seen the results from SEA games selection. And we will prove it again and again in tournaments. Isn't that the best way to see who is right? Or is that too much for you and your friend, Peter Long, to stomach?

As for the results for NJ 2011, I make no apology. Mark met Aaron in the final round. A draw would have seen him in second place.

But even as I was having breakfast with Aaron's mum while the boys were playing and she explained the training Aaron was receiving in China, I had the feeling that we had no answers at that time to that sort of training.

So Mark lost and came in 5th. We fully accept the result. It was an honour to lose to superior training in a clean fight. And we look forward to the rematch.

A big part of the blog wars have been about selection and Jimmy, Peter , Najib and their cronies have argued that I do not have the bona fides to talk about chess and a lot of lies have been spread about my training. So lets examine the evidence again.

The above is from an independent blog and the event was National Junior 2010. Remember that the PICA elections was in 2009 according to Eddy Fong. In 2009 Mark had just entered the National circuit.

The truth of the matter is that by the SEA games selection in mid 2011 Mark was already Sumant's and Zhuo Ren's peer. The boys were in training with FGM because they wanted to learn how FGM training can bring up a player so quickly and from nowhere.

So lets define the difference between a trainer and a coach again.

A trainer is a technicalist. He goes through the syllabus of the things you must know. The coach teaches you how to win. He helps determine the strategy, he discusses with his players which weapons to use for which scenario ergo competitor analysis. And he tunes their mind for the win.

Compare the difference between Sumant's attitude and Zhuo Ren's. One believed he could win and accepted the strategy and began working. The other didn't. The fact is their technical knowledge is about equal.

Now, if Zhuo Ren had not been attacked the way he was and I had been able to continue working with him, he would have eventually understood what I had been telling him during my training for SEA games selection. He would have seen the result of the selection.

And more will shatter that glass ceiling. Now do you understand better why my training needed to be attacked? Why Peter and his behind the scene supporter is so desperately trying to ban Mark?

Part of my training is not to worry about rating. Use all side tournaments to train new weapons and strategies. So what if you get to selection with a smaller number? You get a better chance to win the selection itself. That is compensation enough isn't it?

The point is there are no coaches in Malaysia apart from some parents who coach their own children. FGM is the only one that have brought coaching outside of family. And in that short time we have produced better results than the technicalists.

Why? The syllabus is all over the net and in books. Just learn to read. Much faster. It is the coaching that we need to move to the next level.

Understand this and I will write about the biggest con ever perpetuated on the Malaysian chess community in tomorrow's post.

Without doubt in my mind the major key for change is properly deliberated selection guidelines for any new leadership.

Lets go back to 2 examples I have just talked about to see what we can mine from past experiences.

PICA. There were 3 of us in the selection committee. Me, Zaki Mahumud and Chan. Of the 3, two were new. Zaki as the new PT for Perak had just warmed his seat in State Chess and I had just joined the committee. So the only experienced person on the committee was Chan. Ref: Here.

So any new leadership will also need to rely on information provided by "technical". And as we saw that is a journey fraught with many dangers. Sabotage and undermining.

In the above case we saw misinformation leaked to a parent. Later on the guidelines were aborted altogether even by the new committee members that joined the committee on my ticket. Selection is power. The ability to arbitrarily choose and to reject forms the cornerstone of why some want to be in committee.

Lets look at the Greg situation again now. He started off well. He anchored his NAG and he brought in the National Junior. That is the credit to him. And then he aided in bringing in selection but after which he did a quick about turn.

Now the post of Secretary in an MCF without guidelines is arguably the most powerful post there is. Relatively he may even be more powerful than our own Prime Minister. And yet as you can see even he can be turned.

Here I can only attempt to try and reason out what happened for this turn around. Follow my reasoning to see if it carries water. One possible reason is that the selection was only a tool used by him to bring his detractors to heel. For he was having a lot of problems at that time. His bargaining chip so to speak.

A possible clue is that even with written selection he managed to bring in 2 players outside the criteria. I think that was a message to some people. I think the message was that he is the go to guy to "fix" things.

The other possible reason is that the entrenched vested interests acting in concert are too powerful for even one with such absolute powers as the Secretary of MCF to withstand. Simply put, for they also provide the substantial part of the manpower.

Recent experience starting with the entry of Peter Long to determine national guidelines even though he is not even in MCF but has a vote because of KLCA as well as Melaka gives more credence to the first reason. But at the same time the second reason also cannot be discounted if we also use the experience from PICA as to why some join Associations.

Note: If my reasoning carries any water then it may only be a question of time before selection is reversed.

So any new leader needs to have the strength of character to handle all this. And more important he will also need a team of like minded people on the committee or we will be just rearranging the dust for many more years to come.

Some may argue that this is just chess. My argument is that the correct perspective is play chess with the people outside Malaysia. Team Malaysia vs Team Singapore for instance.

Why are we doing the work for our opponents in the International field? Why are we sabotaging our own people? That is my question and I hope that the new leadership, if any, can provide some answers and solutions.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

You may be wondering why I have been trying to explain the issues so carefully. Actually I have been hearing for about a week or so that there is now a "serious" challenge for the top post. In fact there may even be more than one challenger.

I think this is an important event for all stakeholders of MCF; which is the entire chess community. So do follow this blog closely and carefully as I take you through the issues over the next few days.

The first point that I will raise today is that MCF's AGMs is usually a top secret affair. Have you noticed that? Only a select few are informed. Even among the affiliates commitee and office holders. So you may suddenly find you have a new President and you won't even know that it has happened until it is announced.

The date according to some is in May. Which day? Again a national secret known only to the Secretary. So I think the first thing we should ask for is the specific day. And made known with enough time for the potential candidate/s to prepare. Don't you think that is fair?

Another point. Please note that FGM does not endorce anyone. I agree there should be a contest for the top post. But my believe is that the post should go to the person that can give us the conditions that I will discuss over the next few days.

I hope this won't frighten away the challenger/s. Fight only if you can make a difference for all and not just for you and your cronies. So I hope we won't have an opportunistic affair where one dud is replaced by another.

It is pretty apparent that people like Jimmy and his cronies think that parents are stupid. That all of us are stupid. I wonder how did they come to this conclusion?

Have you ever noticed that this is the way of liars? They deny all evidence and explanations.

In fact that is the acid test for detecting liars.

With selection the glass ceiling is being shattered. I wont be surprised if we see a new line up of the senior squad for the Olympiads. (Provided we have a clean fight at Malaysian Close and the basis of representation is just on merit and they take out that arbitrary basis of "ratings" and other dubious reasons).

Sumant punched through at SEA games selection. Let's follow his example. They are just paper tigers. Take the fight to them. Don't let them hide behind numbers and titles. It doesn't mean a thing. It's been proven by FGM training. Read this again. Here.

This is the major problem afflicting Malaysian chess. We see trainers, organisers and parents vying for position or undue influence in Associations.

Without proper guidelines and code of conduct we see the mayhem that we are seeing now. The illicit use of power and authority. The sabotage.

Lets look at this complex dance of conflict to shed some light on the subject. Greg called parents behind our backs and attempted to sabotage the Asean training 2010. Conflict? He is also a trainer.

Then at Mal/Sing 2011, he was talking to me about his disappointments with Mok as team captain. He also talked about why he doesn't think Mas will make GM. And so he supported selection when I argued for it.

The backlash on him was also instructive. He was also attacked on the blogs etc. Selection means that the glass ceiling can be broken as was later demonstrated. So certain "players" and their cronies and certain parents with vested interest attacked him.

The attack on me is incidental. I do not have the position or the authority. I merely write my blog to try and raise awareness surrounding the issues.

The thematics were attacked probably for the reason that it mirrors closely to the training given in China. I only found out later when Aaron Teh's mum had breakfast with a group of us during National Junior 2011. And yes Jimmy, Aaron is trained in China. So some people did not want others to get similar exposure via our thematics.

And FGM players were attacked with collusion from Greg also probably because he is a trainer too.

And now when questions are asked about abuse of power and vested interest they foam at the mouth.

So we need the conflict of interest issues resolved. And for that we need strong leadership. Someone who can withstand the attacks from the different vested interest groups and put in place proper guidelines and code of conduct.

If not we cannot progress. Association power and collusion is used to sabotage any outside agency and any player that is not in the inner circle. So we see the sabotage of any program that does not financially benefit the inner circle and the knocking out of strong players for reasons that have nothing to do with chess.

Lets go back to Greg again. After SEA games selection he brought in 2 extra players outside the selection criteria. One of them his student and the other? Maybe political? Conflict of interest.

And so is the "banning" of a national player by a washed out trainer and he was even further supported to try and bring this nonsense to National rapid and National blitz. Again conflict of interest. The use of Association power to prop up a failing training school. Hence also KLCA.

And there are many more examples if this is not convincing enough.

How to get a GM under this condition? Training of juniors stopped and top juniors openly attacked with no one in authority to defend them.

I also asked where is the all the money MCF receives that can be used to train our players, juniors and seniors? Why are we sending our players out untrained and unprepared? Conflict between enriching oneself at the expense of the Association?

And yet a few still don't seem to see the problem. I wonder why? Conflict of interest?

Again I would like to state. The Associations are meant to be fair to all and not just those with vested interests.

Eligibility for representation should only be based on those that have won their place in clean competition and strictly according to written selection criteria and for no other reason.

Warning: The contents of the link above is designed to attack your mind.

Context. Eddy Fong has joined the fray. Please go to Jimmy's link to see what he has written. But to understand what is happening we need to know Eddy's background. Eddy was one of the founders of PICA. According to him he "left" as a result of a difference of opinion with Dr Yee, the President, before Chan. His children also played for Selangor and stopped playing for the State as a result of another difference of opinion with the Selangor PT. More telling is that he is also ex-officio MCF and he "left" after disagreement with Hamid.

So now we have players, parents, trainers and (ex)officials in the mix and it is getting confusing as to who is telling the truth. But I think this is also an opportunity for us to really understand what has gone wrong with our Associations.

Points to ponder.

Lets reason this out.

1. PICA. It is true that I am relatively new compared to them. And it has taken me many years to really understand the extent of the rot. Lets look at the constitution of the selection committee first. Me as chair, the PT Perak and the new President, Chan. Decision is carried by simple majority. That means Chair has no casting vote. Ref: Here.

The fact is that prior to us, there were no criteria. The only criteria was who Dr Yee wanted.

So all that twisting is meant to serve only one purpose. To confuse. And the manner of delivery, to intimidate.

2. Sumant's mum writing in. Sumant had in fact been training with us for some time. Around 2 years in fact. Now, he came to my house for the training for SEA games selection. I think the story that they are telling, which is the boys came to train Mark is totally over the top. Train Mark for SEA games selection? He is not playing in it.

Further more Zhuo Ren also asked to come. Do you think these top juniors are stupid? Why come to my training unless they think that I can help them in some way? Ref: Here.

Why not go to Jimmy, Peter Long, Eddy Fong or Najib?

Why suddenly the about face after Sumant had won his place at SEA games selection? Isn't that the time we should be celebrating him getting into the senior squad? What happened at Malaysian Open to force this about turn?

How many mothers do you know that can take those kind of attacks on their child? And where did the attacks come from? Ref: Here.

3. Jimmy, Najib, Peter and now Eddy say that I am insignificant. Why attack something that is insignificant? What does it say about you if you can be so rattled by something insignificant that you spend that amount of time on your blogs attacking my insignificant actions like training the juniors, asking for selection, doing the thematics. And then you attack my players and then you try to ban Mark.

I think that is because we are getting to the truth and to real results. The closer we are the more venomous they get. It's a racket. We need to see this. Players and parents need to be broken before they go out to play for the Country. Why? Because when they go out, they will see a lot of things. They will see what the officials are doing. And if you bring it up, if you question then you will get knocked out.

This is more so for the senior squad. They are more or less permanent fixtures. The juniors and their parents, as they have found out over the years, will come and go.

Think on this.

I won't bother to answer all their lies. Too many with a new one each day. Lets stay focussed on what we can do to change things. Najib is right about one thing.

More and more parents are seeing it. There are many serious questions being asked about Melaka too from the feedback I am receiving. So we are getting much closer to change. Ref: Here.

Note to all players: There is a clue here to breaking that now cracked glass ceiling. Sumant showed the way. Ref: Here.

If these "players" can be rattled by insignificant people then your best chance of beating them is to take the fight to them. They rely on belligerence. They are easily frightened so they can be beaten. Do not be afraid of frightened people. Do think on this too.

Monday, April 9, 2012

During the struggle to get us selection I had many conversations with Greg. One of them is this. Greg told me that he had been warned not to talk to me. I told him that as a leader his job is to listen to all no matter how unpleasant the subject, weigh the matter and then make up his own mind.

His argument is the same as many I have heard over the years on undue influence. So let me explain what undue influence is.

Undue influence is when pressure is added. Intimidation and victimisation. There is no undue influence if the subject matter is discussed, reasoned out and people allowed to freely make up their own minds after the debate.

An aside: FGM also claims to have helped bring in written selection for National representation. The very first written criteria published was on this blog. And that was from a private email sent to a parent on NAG selection criteria. This is a matter of record.

The above point is clearer if we also understand the difference between listening and hearing. Listening is the active engagement of the pertinent facts. Hearing is just in and out without consideration. Just noise. Listening leads to learning.

Another point for your consideration. Many of you know me and have seen me in tournaments. I ask you to think back. Have you ever seen me shout? And yet the bloggers surrounding Jimmy's blog keep saying that I am shouting. If I do not shout in person, can I shout from just writing? Where is their perception of shouting coming from?

Caveat: I have raised my voice once in public. And that was during the Mal/Sing event 2010. That time I told Peter Long to shut up and not to try to demoralise the Malaysian team.

So I think this points to a deeper problem. Not only no hearing and defintely no listening but instead they try their hardest to close their ears. And yet they cannot drown the "shouting" in their minds.

Remember ours is a mind sport. We are not doing well and they keep their ears closed and just continue with their technical issues, intimidation and attempts at character assasination. But they cannot win in tournaments; cannot make even one GM run.

I believe this is because a GM run is about thinking under pressure. About not allowing their blind fears from overwhelming their minds. About not being intimidated and not allowing themselves to become victims. And it all starts when you can hear and then you develop that into being able to listen.

For truly listening is a very hard thing to do. Try it. It is exhausting until you have practised it for a long time.

But when you can listen, that means that you are able to think despite that roar in your mind. Or at a higher level of mastery, the roar/shouting has subsided.

An example: When Zhuo Ren rejected the strategy to take on Mok, what is the logical step that must now follow if he still wants to be selected? What did the result of SEA games selection demonstrate? Was he able to listen and reason or had fear aided by intimidation shut down his mind? Ref: Here.

Do look at the comments there and the related one in the link on the top of the posting. This conversation has tickled my thinking since. These are the questions on my mind. How can Greg stop Mok from getting his RM5,000 if Dato really wants to give it to Mok? Why didn't Mok just call up Dato directly?

An aside: I did, when Dato asked me to do the tournament for KLK in Perak. I was still in PICA and I heard that Hamid was discussing with other committee members of PICA over the same thing. So I just rang him and said if he wanted Hamid to do it then do so by all means. No problem but at least inform me of the fact. All academic by the way since I was sacked a few days later. So Jimmy, here's another small snippet to your question. Will answer more comprehensively later.

So it seems to me that it is Dato that doesn't want Mok to have the money for whatever reason. It's his money after all. But I would be curious to know the reason.

Actually I will be answering that question in following posts when I write about how we got so twisted. I have documented it before in my previous posts. However I think most people should be able to deduce the answer from my recent postings.

Do you think chess helps or hinders our children? Read this again. Here.

Is that what our children are learning from the game here? Yes, we have tournaments. But is that enough? What do tournaments do? What happens when we send our boys and girls out into the world untrained and unprepared.

What happens when we intimidate them until they start apologising to ghosts? What happens when they see less deserving players enter via the backdoor?

Answer: Tournaments are there for the players to display their training. And what are our players displaying in International Tournaments?

The Association exists to serve the chess community. It's only agenda is to promote the game of chess. There can be no other private agendas.

So the chess official is not there to serve a few players but all players. The official is not there to serve a few parents but all parents. And the officials are elected and entrusted to do that job. And they are empowered to act on behalf of all the members to enter into negotiations and contracts with sponsors and suppliers to fulfill that obligation.

So it is not for an official to say who should play for the State or the Country. That is his personal opinion. He just has to follow the agreed guidelines. For in truth the official is not a boss. He is there to serve the entire chess community impartially. Ergo he is a servant. This is the simple and apparent fact.

If the official wants to be a boss, then he has to go out into the world to fight for his rightful place as a boss. For it is not easy to be a boss. You have to prove yourself in the market place. You have to compete with other bosses and come up with good product and services to survive. And if you make it, you finally get labelled a boss. For that is a label of achievement.

As a boss you have more rights. You have earned your money in the market place. You have paid the price. None can question how you now choose to spend your own money.

But if you choose to remain in Association you are a servant official. And if you do your job well, you will be a respected public servant.

This is the clear and apparent truth.

Next: How did we get so twisted as evidenced by the blog wars. A clue. A friend called me and asked why I bother with such nasty people. My answer was, it is because they are nasty. If they were decent people then there is nothing for me to write. I don't think it is right for our children to be victim to their nastiness.

There was a blend of old and new committee members after the PICA elections in 2009. On my ticket was the secretary and one of the 2 VP's. While the old team had the President and treasurer.

So I argued that we were voted in for change and that we represented almost half the membership. And I wanted to deliberate proper guidelines. It was soon apparent to me that even the new team that were voted in for change on my ticket did not want proper guidelines.

One of the signals was that someone called Sumant's dad and told him that I was responsible for the removal of Sumant and I got an irate phone call from him in the middle of the night. Now this is strange on 2 counts. First, Sumants name was never on the list and second, why was an internal PICA discussion "revealed" to a 3rd party albeit with distortions.

To figure this out we need to understand the nature of State Association politics. Unlike MCF, the officials in State Associations do not make money. During my time there I had to fund most of my activities doing PICA work. So if its not money, what is it?

This is my observation.

Status and ego. To be seen on the podium. To be able to tell friends that they have the way in for State representation. So it is about illicit power.

And guidelines take that away. With guidelines, you cannot bring in your friends, your students or even your own child via the backdoor.

I came in as an ordinary committee member having rejected the VP post during elections. But I quickly saw that unless the President was on board, any effort for guidelines will be frustrated. More so if the secretary and treasurer was also not on board.

But there is more. There is also the culture. Even though I have explained time and time again that I do not have the power nor do I want the power to choose selectively, the parents did not believe me. And this is a big problem too. The anxious parents now turn to the people who can "fix" things.

And so the old ways are re-empowered. Guidelines out of the window. So how things will work now is selection will go to those closest to officials.

If we want fairness for all, then the parents too need to play their part. They have to accept proper written guidelines, vote in people they trust and not interfere in selection. And of course we must also have clean competition or it all won't work.

So it's a tall order. And it all starts at the top for the Associations. Without this it will be very difficult to get a GM. Many young talent will disappear as they will have been selectively filtered out for reasons that has nothing to do with chess.

Are you starting to understand this 3rd blog war that is now on again?

Friday, April 6, 2012

Thank you for reminding me of Association politics. It's been a while. Lets put this in context. I had only just joined the committee of PICA after losing the election for President to Chan by one vote.

Note: I take that to mean that nearly half of PICA membership voted for my agenda.

My platform as delivered in my speech before the election was for change. The need to stop match fixing and to bring PICA back into the national main stream. Up to that time there were only a few Perakians who played at National Close and Merdeka Team event. And we had no presence in NAG or National Junior.

So yes one of the first things we deliberated at the selection committee which comprised of me as Chair, Zaki Mahmud (PT Perak) and Chan (President) was how to encourage Perakians to enter the national main stream again.

All those names were submitted among others to be considered but Sumants name was not there. So I suppose you brought this up for your own motive and this is not about the Sumant case.

Anyway there were no dispute over the names except for Mat Zaki Yeop. It was argued that he should not be included. I argued in his defence saying that he was the only Perakian that flew the Perak flag for many years when there were zero Perak representation. And I felt he should be rewarded for his loyalty to the State since he had done that for years on his own dime.

Yit San was also passed by the committee. So that made up the 4 names.

I know this is a far cry from what you are used to when one man made all the decisions and as a parent you are unable to see beyond your personal bias. The submitted names were deliberated on and we presented our arguments and reasons to the committee members. But the final decision was unanimous.

So what is your point? That I over stepped my authority? I only argued for one person and that was Mat Zaki Yeop and yes maybe his inclusion was because I convinced the other 2 members. Isn't that how a committee is supposed to work?

But let me say here what I would have done if Mark's name was the one in dispute, which it was not. I would have walked out of the room and allowed the other 2 members to make the decision.

I think you are just trying to manipulate this situation for your own ends. And that is despicable.

Aren't you being disrespectful to Zaki Mahmud and Chan by saying they were manipulated?

Are you saying that your opinion supersede all of ours? God complex? Are you saying that your knowldege of chess and its development outstrips all of us? Then why didn't you join the committee? You joined and quit and joined and quit again and again.

Aren't you trying to use Mrs Demudu misunderstanding to sow more discord? Sumant's name was never in and nobody had any part in removing his name.

I regret your posting on Jimmy's blog. For that forces me to answer you here.

If you read my postings carefully you will see that I am not attacking Sumant. I have acknowledged many times in my postings that he was the one that helped Mark in the beginning. For example, Ref: Here.

Sumant was with me for around 4 to 5 days for SEA games training. And during that time your husband was consulted every step of the way. I have asked him and Sumant to speak to you and explain what we did but I guess that didn't take place. But that is your internal affair.

If you want the truth of the matter do speak to Sumant and ask him if what I said is true or not.

Anyway about the matter of him not being selected by PICA, I have explained to you many times but I will do so again here. When I am an official of an Association I do not play favoritism. I was one of 3 members of the selection committee (although I was the Chairman) and Sumants name was not tabled as he was not considered by them to be a Perak player.

I do not bring my personal favorites in just because I can. That would be an abuse of authority. I do not operate that way. The list of names were tabled by the other 2 committee members and I just made sure that we deliberated the names on the list as best we can.

My point to you and other parents who seem offended by my stance is that there is no need for the backdoor. If your child is good he will make it on merit. One of the reasons why our players do not do well in International arenas is because of the intervention of well meaning parents who want easy entries for their child. This fosters corruption among the officials. I hope you can understand.

I have explained as best I can about what happened at our training and what happened after as is within my rights and I will not mention it again.

All my best to you and family.

PS: Please note the difference between a public official as in PICA and FGM which is a legal private entity. Both of which confer different rights and different responsibilities. During my time in PICA, FGM was not in existence.

As we were entering into the national circuit, Izz was on his way out. He made a few attempts to capture past glories but then faded away.

At that time there were some rumours about what happened to him. Apparently a lot of money was paid out and he was touted as the next GM.

I think we need to find out the truth of this.

Why?

It is said that they are attacking FGM because of me. I don't think so. I think anyone who tries to break that glass ceiling would get the same treatment. From what happened to Zhuo Ren, Sumant and Mark, I don't think these guys care about the players at all.

Actually there is one more "lost generation". What happened to Abel Yap, Foo Chee Kin, Anas etc?

What is happening to our juniors now? What do you think is happening before our eyes to Sumant, Zhuo Ren and Mark? Where is Edward Lee, Kaushal?

They say it is because our juniors are weak. And they put the blame on the kids.

I think they want our kids to be weak. They see the parents as a fat check and they do not deliver. I think it's a racket.

Knowing what happened to Izz will help us see clearer what has happened, is happening now.

I think our players are being knocked out one by one. The only way to stop this is if we all share our experience and let the truth out.

For now they are talking about Li Tian. Can we trust these people? What is their game?

So what happened to Izz?

Read Tengku's speech again. Here. We need to do this for the generations to come.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Note: Please follow the sequence of event carefully to see if my train of reasoning carries water.

Hours after Zhuo Ren returned to KL his email appeared on Jimmy's blog. The speed was astounding. I was informed but didn't read it until the next day. So I called Zhou Ren and asked him why he couldn't just call me to say he had changed his mind about joining FGM instead of a public attack like that? Btw, I feel this is a relatively minor point since I already know the attitude of some of the trainers here.

FGM has the audacity to actually train our players to meet and take on the IM's on the table. Hard for some of them to take since they think the juniors should wait until they retire.

Sumant had left his helmet at Zhuo Ren's place so I asked him to give me some feedback when he met Zhuo Ren. He told me that when he saw Zhuo Ren, he was crying and Zhuo Ren said that he has a deal with the IM's to draw with him if he cooperated.

Now this is more alarming. But this is also almost impossible to prove. So when I heard this, I called Sumant's dad, Greg, Najib and Yee Weng. Selection must be a clean fight. Otherwise why train? With Sumant's dad and others monitoring the selection, we had the results that we did. Sumant made it on merit.

So at this stage Zhuo Ren has left FGM. And I have only 2 players left. Sumant and Mark. Sumant who is the first junior to make senior squad via selection and Mark who was the U18 number 2 and National junior number 2 that year. So FGM is starting to show results from our hard work.

But it's not over. Next came the Malaysian Open. Sumant was suddenly dropped from the Malaysian Team in the team event. Now follow this closely. I called Greg and explained that this would be bad for Sumant's morale but Greg did nothing.

Now the hands are beginning to show. The message was getting clearer. Cooperate like Zhuo Ren or we will fix you. I formed a team around Sumant when he was dropped but that was not enough.

One of his parents explained this to me. They don't like FGM. There are whisperings that Sumant would be dropped from SEA games squad unless he distances himself from me.

Now lets reason this out. There is one IM and one FM in Malaysia that talks about how weak our junior players are. And now one junior has taken the fight to them and won a place on pure merit. And he is dropped from the team event at Malaysian Open!? And he is attacked on the blogs. His parents are quietly warned.

Think about it. If they really wanted strong juniors how would they have greeted Sumant's achievement? Why the need to attack FGM?

And so finally Sumant made that public apology. To Sumant's credit, he took the flak for a long time till his parents were warned. What does Sumant need to apologise for? For training? For trying to win his place in fair competition?

And FGM is left with one player. And then they try to ban Mark.

Now understand that none of this can take place without the collusion of Greg. Nobody but him can determine the Malaysian team and nobody can drop Sumant from the squad without his consent. Nobody can ban anyone without reason except with his OK. He has shown his hand.

And this is very very alarming.

So my case is if we want to see that GM, if we want to progress, then the leadership must be changed.

No other trainer/coach have produced players with our results. FGM has the best track record so far in the short time we have been around. So they need to knock us out with their dirty tricks.

And now what can FGM do? They ask me on facebook why don't I continue to do more. Look at our history. First training for our juniors before International representation. Attacked. Thematics. Attacked. Our players attacked.

So until we can find a way to stop this we have to stop our activity. Otherwise it is not fair to our players. For in actuality it is MCF that is attacking them. Or more directly Greg, the hidden hand.

Sumant had been training with us for some time even before SEA games selection. We will sit down and discuss meaning of strategy etc etc. Ref: Here.

Since I normally assess both Mark's and Sumant's performance at most tournaments they go to together, my evaluation of Sumant was that he lacked discipline to train and he also did not carefully think through which opening to play with each player.

The strategy agreed for SEA games selection was that he must win against the lower ranked players and take down or draw with at least 2 of the IM's present. Of the IM's present we chose Jimmy, Mok and Yee Weng to study since we could not find the right weapon for Mas.

Now, as you remember, Zhuo Ren also asked to come. But he did not agree with the strategy. He kept saying that Mok was unbeatable and so he did his own thing. I guess it shouldn't have been much of a surprise when his email came out on Jimmy's blog.

With Sumant we helped to evaluate the best possible line against Jimmy if he had played French. But Jimmy switched to Philidor and Sumant lost.

The choice of line that we looked for are lines that take the fight to the IM's and not play passively.

With Mok, we found that Sumant also did not have a good line and then the boy's contacted an IM friend of theirs and he provided a line that we felt Sumant can win with. And so Sumant won.

Up to now, our contribution is mostly to get Sumant to train and to methodically go through each line with each player, as both white and black, that was in for the selection.

And we acted as his sparring partner and sounding board to challenge his assumptions.

But this is where we contributed technically. We also found that Sumant did not have a fighting weapon for Yee Weng.

Mark came to me quietly. He told me he had a personal line for Yee Weng that he felt was also good for Sumant. But he wanted to keep it for himself. So my advice to him was that when you work together, you need to give your best to each other. We were there to help and so I advised him to share but it was his choice. Mark shared his weapon with Sumant and Sumant got a draw from a winning position.

And so history was changed by this training. A junior won his place on the senior squad, in a selection, and the IM's here now know they will have a fight on their hands in the future.

The sequence of events after this will show you just how frightened certain IM's and trainers became as a result of this training. Next post.

Monday, April 2, 2012

If the doctor keeps on prescribing the same medicine which produces opposite results, then something must be wrong with the doctor, and something more serious must be wrong with the patient who keeps on trusting the same doctor.

There are many interesting implications inherent in the topic of my address to you today: Malaysia: The Future is in Our Hands.

2. The rakyat is reminded that he is master, and that he holds the key to the future of this land.

Ladies and gentlemen,

3. When I say the future is in your hands, I am not referring to the lines on your palm. I am saying the future is in your hands because it is with these hands that you are going to elect the people who will represent your best interest in the government.

Ladies and gentlemen,

4. Some people told me that we are poised on the cusp of change, and the choice that you make is significant, perhaps not so much for you as for your children, grand children and great-grand children. To put it another way, the future of innocent children yet unborn for generations to come is in your hands.

5. In other words, it is not the King who will decide the future for us, it is not what the Prime Ministers want that will be of any consequence. It is not the VVIPs or the so-called political analysts who are going to decide the future of our land. It is you, and here I include the ordinary citizens of the country, meaning the farmer, the teacher, the petty trader, stall keeper, the trishaw puller, the watchman, the bread man and even the unemployed vagrant who is going to decide the destiny of our children.

6. The issue of choice is sacrosanct to human beings who have been endowed with free will. You are born to be free. It is not for the government or the opposition to decide whether you should be free or not. Remember, nobody can dictate your choice unless you let him.

7. Therefore, more sacrosanct than any other day is the day of election. It is a day when you will hold the country’s future in your hands. In fact, no other election has been so much talked about and anticipated with as much anxiety and expectations as the forthcoming elections. The coming election appears so important that it may be likened to the ‘battle of the century’ for our country.

8. There are many Malaysians who complain about the government but are not registered voters. They make loud comments but lack the will to make a difference. They do not commit themselves wholeheartedly to seek change and to exercise their voting rights to choose a better government.

9. Your future is in your hands and if you fail to treasure the right, and exercise the right with wisdom, then you and no one else is to blame for your own destiny. As the Qur’an says in chapter 13, verse 11:

“Truly, God does not change the condition of a people unless they change what is in themselves”.

10. Now the next issue is, are we able to exercise our mind with wisdom? Unfortunately, as a people and as a nation, we are not able to do so. We are born free, but our minds have become captive.

11. In our country, the problem of the captive mind has its origins in the race dilemma to an extent that we have become incapable of devising an analytical method independent of current stereotypes about Malays, Chinese, Indians and the others. Our thinking is based completely on a racial world view when it comes to matters of politics, education, economics, planning, and so forth.

12. Needless to say, we promote a racial world view that thrives on the policy of divide and rule.

13. The citizens of the land are exiting the country in large numbers, and the gap is filled, not by people with equivalent skills and potentials, but by unskilled labour from abroad. Public universities have no places for locals, but they are absorbing large numbers of foreign students. It is sad that our own people should be deprived of the benefits of a good education – a resource that has been described as the global currency of 21st century economies.

14. And yet education is seen as the best solution to the economic uncertainties of the times, as it enables our people to compete, collaborate and connect in a way that drives our economies forward.

15. And today, we have the captive mind, the product largely of our education system, which has failed to generate its opposite, the creative mind. The captive mind feeds on trivia and fragmented knowledge, and students are not taught to be philosophical, universal or intercultural.

16. Our educational curricula do not encourage the moral and intellectual reform of the mind. If we look west, we find that the development of education took place as part and parcel of the evolution of society and civilization as a whole. But in our own case, the education system has failed to impart the fundamentals of scientific thinking and reasoning in relation to our own society.

17. Captive minds tend to avoid major issues such as the concept of good governance, meaning of development, the effect of corruption on society and the rule of law.

18. Again, as it stands today, in the area of economy, there is no honest intellectual inquiry to find out why, despite many years of implementing the New Economic Policy, inequitable distribution of income continues to plague the people, and why we are lagging behind countries that do not have as much resources.

19. To this very day, the electorate has not understood the implications of the New Economic Policy which has produced results that are diametrically opposed to the original intention of bridging the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The longer we try the policy, the further we are from the original goal.

20. If the doctor keeps on prescribing the same medicine which produces opposite results, then something must be wrong with the doctor, and something more serious must be wrong with the patient who keeps on trusting the same doctor.

21. Today, the discrepancy between vision and reality has taken on an alarming turn. It has gone far beyond economics into the realm of ethics and morality. In numerous instances it has taken the form of corruption and decadence which has pushed the economy further down the drain.

22. Today, we are saddled with a spiraling national debt brought to exist by wanton corruption and wasteful spending. It is feared that in relation to Singapore which is free of foreign debts, if we are not careful, it won’t take us long before we become another Greece. The problem continues to escalate, despite being highlighted by the Auditor General year after year in his annual reports. It has been estimated that we can easily save RM25-30bn without changing any of the deliverables if only we can get rid of corruption and cronyism.

Ladies and gentlemen,

23. Professor Alatas once said that we have different types of governments such as democracy, autocracy, theocracy, and so forth, and now we need to describe our government as one that keeps the people ignorant. According to him, we need to use new terms such as “ignocracy” to describe a government that wants to keep the people ignorant.

24. And yet for a democracy to succeed it is of cardinal importance for us to make informed choices.

Ladies and gentlemen,

25. We have the power to cast away our misfortune by casting our votes for the right candidates. But our captive minds are unable to guide our hands in making the right choices for our future and the future of our children.

26. When I say that the future is in your hands, it is not merely a reference to your individual role as a voter. I must add that the future is in your hands in a larger collective sense. In those days, the duty to educate and inform was left to educators and writers, as well as the government. Today we can longer trust them to act as purveyors of truth. It has become our responsibility to hold the future in our own hands. In this effort, we are thankful for the new technology which has flung open the doors of democracy, making it easier for us to organize and share information.

27. Therefore, through our efforts at educating and promoting political consciousness, let us hope that the people of this country, in the rural and urban areas alike, will cast away their slumber, and wake up to greet the dawn of a new day, as we did fifty five years ago when the Tunku called this nation into being in the name of God, the Compassionate and the Merciful, a nation that “ever seeks the welfare of its people”.